


Considering

by Katherine



Category: Firefly
Genre: Alternate Universe, Marriage, Multi, Sedoretu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21741511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: "You might want to consider marriage," Book said mildly, looking up from the volume of Discussions he had on the table in front of him.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Considering

**Author's Note:**

> Sedoretu, the marriage by fours that Ursula K. Le Guin set up in her stories of the planet O, in "Mountain Ways" and other stories.
> 
> "sedoretu — a man and a woman from the Morning moiety and a man and a woman from the Evening moiety. You're expected to have sex with both your spouses of the other moiety, and not to have sex with your spouse of your own moiety." . — Mountain Ways, [Excerpts from _The Birthday of the World_](https://www.ursulakleguin.com/the-birthday-of-the-world-1) [And Other Stories]

"You might want to consider marriage," Book said mildly, looking up from the volume of Discussions he had on the table in front of him.

Mal said something scattered about Zoe.

"Would that be more difficult with the boundaries of marriage around you?" Book asked. He asked questions a lot of the time. "Besides," he continued, with a glimpse of a smile, "If you do not, it will not be yours that is the First Sedoretu of Serenity."

It wouldn't be, at that, not with the way Simon and Kaylee were beginning to clutch on to each other. When first introducing River Simon had said, grimly, "We are brother and sister." He hadn't been much more than the doctor then, the doctor with a strangeness dragged along in a box. "Same father. Same mother. Same Moiety. We couldn't." But River wanted to, all too obviously, and Mal was not in the least sure that Simon would mind, in the end.

Firefly had seen nearly as strange already, what with Zoe and Wash having impatiently formed a rare marriage of only two. (Rumor had it there were worlds where every person who married did so in only a couple. Stranger rumors of a planet all of the same Moiety.)

Inara had started to angle towards Zoe lightly, persistently, and Mal could see what would be the Day marriage on the edge of forming, like sun peeking up over mountains. He did want Inara, himself, as Book's telling question reminded him. He'd been aching for Zoe for too many years. This way he and she would have particular placements they should be in.

Of course, if Kaylee and River succeeded in their potential Day conspiracy to pull in Jayne, themselves made a sedoretu, and Simon and River kept on looking at each other like that after Simon was inside one... Moieties might not be so strong a protection as they were supposed to be. Not on Serenity. So many things about life were different out in the black than they were planetside. Marriages and ways of arranging families were not the least.


End file.
